Last call for the Studebaker on Mars

VIDEO: Studebakers visit Hamilton factory

Hamilton’s Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club organized a chance for members to use the former Studebaker factory property on Mars Avenue, Sunday, October 14, 2012, for one afternoon before the rest of the structure is demolished.

DAYTONA

Gary Yokoyama/The Hamilton Spectator

Members of the Hamilton chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club had a collection of their cars for one last gasp of nostalgia before the factory structure is demolished. Studebaker owner George Graham and his 1963 Studebaker Daytona Convertible.

MARS

Gary Yokoyama/The Hamilton Spectator

Members of the Hamilton chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club had a collection of their cars for one last gasp of nostalgia before the Mars Avenue factory structure is demolished.

STUDEBAKERS

Gary Yokoyama/The Hamilton Spectator

Members of the Hamilton chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club had a collection of their cars for one last gasp of nostalgia before the Mars Avenue factory structure is demolished.

MARS

Gary Yokoyama/The Hamilton Spectator

Members of the Hamilton chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club had a collection of their cars for one last gasp of nostalgia before the Mars Avenue factory structure is demolished. On the north side of the former factory the outline of Studebaker is still visible.

Faded leaves blew across the buckled and weed-strewn asphalt, in the shadow of the gutted factory that houses mangled steel and rubble.

But when the sun came out, the air felt warm and thick, for a little while, almost like a midsummer’s day. If you followed your heart and not your eyes, you were there: the 1950s, sunlight bursting off chrome of Studebakers rolling out of the factory on Mars Avenue.

They made the pilgrimage to the north end of Hamilton in their Studebaker models: the Challenger, Champion, and President; the Hawk, Lark, and even an M Series truck.

About 30 of the cars lined up in rows, their shiny exteriors coloured English white, cherry red, black, mint and powder blue; the leather seats and quirky chrome levers and shifters and radio dials polished inside; whitewalls gleaming.

The Studebaker factory opened in 1948 and closed in 1966 — three years after the company’s headquarters in South Bend, Ind. shut down. The Hamilton building has been coming down in bits and pieces for some time.

Hamilton’s Chapter of the Studebaker Drivers Club organized a chance for members to use the property Sunday for one afternoon before the rest of the structure is demolished.

They took pictures of the Studebaker name, which is still there, high up on the north wall in big black letters.

Drivers each backed their cars in front of the factory, as though coming fresh off the line, for a photo-op.

“It’s the last time,” said Donna Graham, watching her husband, George, pose in their red and white ’63 Daytona convertible, which has “Studebaker of Canada” emblazoned on a dashboard gage.

“We’ll never see this again.”

They bought the car several years ago; it had been restored by a previous owner after it had burned in a barn fire in Niagara-on-the-Lake.

All the vintage cars on hand had a story: checkered histories, glory days, comebacks, and now their pampered years of fair-weather driving only.

Club members are passionate and genial people who feel a connection to their Studebakers, and what they represent. The feeling runs deep but it is one not easily explained, even as they feel it in their bones.

It’s not just a car.

“No, it’s not,” said Bob Barrick. “It’s part of you.”

Bob had his ’66 Daytona there. He dated his wife-to-be in that car. His dad once sold Studebakers at a dealership in Port Colborne. When Bob was four, Dad took him to Hamilton to drive a new one from the factory he had just bought — a Starlight Coupe Champion: white, tan top.

That was in 1953, the last time Bob set foot on the Mars Avenue lot.

“Dad?” he answered, his voice catching a bit. “He’s gone.”

The factory site has had many lives. It was used to manufacture anti-aircraft guns in the 1940s for the war effort, before the Studebaker Company purchased the land in 1946.

Most of the cars at the event Sunday were built in Hamilton, a few of them were manufactured in South Bend.

Mike McCurdy rolled up in his ’61 Lark that his dad, Sam, helped him restore. It had previously been crushed by a truck. Father and son brought it back.

Sam McCurdy worked at the plant for pretty much its entire run in Hamilton. He died a few years ago.

“He would have been here today for sure. I think he is, in some way.”

Rollie Lusted remembers as a kid living on nearby Shaw Street coming down to see the new cars in the lot. His father-in-law used to work in the plant.

“It was a different world back then, a smaller world,” said Rollie. “A car was an event — looking for a car, buying a car, it was a real event.”

Rollie is 73 and looks fit, his eyes steel grey. He’s a tall man but fits just fine in the black bucket seats of his ’64 Avanti, one of the most eccentric of the Studebakers, with fins on the front of the car. The engine shines like a diamond under the hood; he cleans it after every drive.

He smiles when considering that, while he cherishes the old days, new technology got him his Avanti — he found it online from a seller in California in 11 years ago.

Rollie was definitely searching for old tech, padding around outside the factory. He was looking for a souvenir, maybe even something with a stylized “S” on it, although he knew that was not going to happen, not after all these years.

A few of them were doing that, grasping at an echo of the past. One guy tried to pull a loose brick right out of the wall.

Rollie spotted a small round metal piece and picked it up.

“It’s maybe a suspension piece or something,” he said, rolling the rusty artifact in his fingers, and then holding it tight. “But probably not.”